Sunday, November 08, 2009

In 1890, 30-year-old Anton Chekhov was already a Pushkin Prize winner with hit plays swooning Moscow’s elite when he pulled a Dave Chappelle. He turned his back on fame and packed for a penal colony north of Japan on Sakhalin Island, a place he’d later call “hell.” Unlike so many other Russian writers, he wasn’t going in chains, but as a tourist.